by Adam Silvera
She has the same tight black bun she’s been wearing since she was brought onto the Senator’s staff one year after Mom was killed. Black eyeliner she probably put on for the Senator is smudging around her icy-blue eyes. She curses under her breath.
I don’t have to be good at reading people to know she hates me.
We worked closely together back when I was more compliant because she wrote some of the speeches I delivered at the youth conferences she would book for me. One night I thanked her for giving me all these stages to release my anger and grief. Then she overstepped by inviting me to always talk to her about my feelings like I would’ve with Mom. I had the Senator shut that down immediately because no one was ever going to replace my mother. It was all business from there on out with Roslyn.
I’m sure she was thrilled when she thought I actually died in the Blackout. My resurrection has probably been really hard on her. I wish I’d been around when the Senator broke the news.
The difference between working with Roslyn now from before is that this time I know all the lines she’s feeding me are lies. I won’t be surprised if she keeps me going past midnight. I’ve been fed twice, but during those breaks I had to watch footage of Congresswoman Sunstar’s staff to study their behavior and appearances so I can pose as them. But mostly I’ve been shifting into people who don’t even exist. I’m given faces of randoms around the country and build a look. Someone’s yellow teeth with someone else’s lips with someone else’s button nose with someone else’s brown eyes with someone else’s red buzz cut.
Then I lie about how celestials have ruined my life.
I’ve appeared as a teenager whose invisible high school coach spied on me in the locker room. The assistant to a boss who threatened to burn me from the inside out if I kept refusing dates with him. A victim who gave away my car keys because of “some young punk’s mind control,” which isn’t even a known power in our world; it’s something that’s ripped out of science-fiction movies. A child who bullied a boy at school, so his mother blinded me with her blazing light—a power not-so-strikingly similar to Sunstar.
No one will use the word, but it’s all propaganda.
“Again,” Roslyn says from behind the camera. “Sell it to me.”
“The young celestial threatened me if I didn’t give him all the money,” I say as an older bank teller with welling tears brought on by how tired I am. I don’t want to say this last part, but I do. “He told me that the money was going to be donated to the Spell Walkers so they can build better defenses against the enforcers. His eyes were glowing as bright as the lightning in his hands. . . .”
The thing is, if anyone does the bare minimum to fact-check these stories, they won’t be able to come up with anything to support it. But the problem is no one tries anymore. Headlines are read, articles are skimmed, and the reader passes that on to someone else, and they accept it as truth. Then that person tells someone else and it spreads like poison. By the time someone senses something is off and does their own research, it’s too late. The damage has been done.
This is only one of the twenty-four stories I’ve filmed so far to further paint the Spell Walkers as villains. To make sure Sunstar never catches up in the polls. To limit the rights of celestials and increase demands for more enforcers.
The world is worse off because of me and my infinite faces.
Eighteen
The Unchosen One
BRIGHTON
My body feels like it’s on fire.
Since the middle of the night, I’ve been reapplying the cooling gel across my forehead, chest, arms, and even my feet. Then the morning brought insult to injury when I struggled with opening the childproof cap of my painkillers with my left hand. Also, pharmacies really shouldn’t be allowed to call these pills painkillers if they’re not going to kill the pain. I’m covered in sweat and biting back my cries when someone knocks on the door. I’m about to shout at Emil to go away when Ruth calls my name from the hallway.
“Yeah?” I ask, strained.
Ruth enters and her hand goes to her heart. She looks around the room, which is already a mess, and then her eyes glow like multiplying stars. A purple light flashes and her clone appears, matching every lock of hair behind her ear and every wrinkle in her shirt. The clone collects the plates from my half-eaten lunch and my empty glass and leaves. Ruth is gentle as she helps me out of bed so she can replace my drenched sheets. She parts the window’s curtains to let more air in and it’s dark out now. I’ve slept most of this day away.
“Do you want some company?” Ruth asks. “I could use some.”
“Isn’t that what clones are for?”
“It’s hard talking with someone who knows everything about you because they are you. Believe me, I would run my own book club if my clones had their own opinions,” Ruth says with a smile. “You should take your medicine with some food in your stomach.”
“I’ll eat in here.”
“If you really want to, but it would mean a lot to me if you joined me in the living room. Pretty much everyone is out right now, so it’s relaxed,” she says.
I should try and eat some more, especially after everything I’ve been throwing up.
Ruth’s clone returns with ice-cold water. Ruth and her clone exchange tired smiles before the clone fades in a pale purple light. If this had been weeks ago, it would’ve been cool seeing Ruth’s power in action after hearing Wesley talk about it in our Spell Walkers of New York interview, the one that got Ruth a lot of slack from the conservative blogger Silver Star Slayer. But now it makes me extra envious.
We go out toward the living room, where someone is playing piano. It’s a little choppy, but otherwise it’s beautiful and calming. I’m expecting it to be Wesley or another clone, but it’s Prudencia seated on the bench, her hands hovering over the keys, pressing down on them with her power. She loses concentration when I enter, and Esther begins squirming in the bassinet beside her feet. Prudencia’s eyes glow and when she resumes playing Esther settles down.
“Where is everyone?” I ask as I sit on the couch in front of a foldout table since Iris destroyed the real dining table.
“Iris finally fell asleep, and Wesley and Emil are installing surveillance cameras along the road just to be safe,” Ruth says with fear in her voice. She’s risking her home for us.
She prepares a plate for me with mashed potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli, roasted carrots, corn, and a salad with sunray dressing. Nothing that I can’t eat easily with one hand.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Ruth says as she sits beside me on the couch. “I should’ve asked before, but are you okay with my clones being around? It’s second nature to me, but I want to be more sensitive.”
“No, you keep doing you. I’m actually curious about your powers. . . .” I stop, realizing that this is one of Prudencia’s biggest issues with me. “Forget it. You don’t have to talk about that.”
“I’m happy to. It’s been a journey,” she says, beginning her story.
Ruth comes from a long line of celestials with cloning abilities. Their matriarch, Ruth the First, was born under the Twinned Queen constellation, which only surfaces for two nights every century. She was so powerful that she could clone objects too. Fame turned Ruth the First into a purist and all the other children in her line followed suit. When the Twinned Queen returned eighteen years ago, Ruth’s parents timed their pregnancy so they could have her under the constellation.
“They were so happy when they found out they were having a girl so they could name me after Ruth the First. But my mother’s water broke three days before the constellation. Labor was painful and she did her best to keep me in, hiring healers to absorb her pain and drinking all these potions to numb herself, but it was all too much and she gave birth to me early.”
Fast-forward several years and Ruth showed no sign of powers. Ruth couldn’t clone herself or objects like her mother or project her spirit in her sleep like her father. Her
parents had her tested by savants and were so ashamed to admit that their daughter was Ruth the First’s descendant and showed no sign of gleam.
“I grew up embarrassed that I wasn’t special,” Ruth says.
“I know the feeling. My grandmother was psychic. Her power wasn’t that strong, just these immediate future visions, like if someone was about to trip, but I still had hope for myself. And no . . .” I gesture at my entire body. “Here I am. The unchosen one.”
“You might be better for it. My powers didn’t manifest because of anything good. That savant recommended a forced isolation on me, and scenarios where I would need to escape somewhere to try and spark my power. My parents busied me with friends and playdates for weeks and then, one day, they took it all away. I couldn’t go outside and I was so lonely and crying all the time. Ten days later my clone appeared for the first time because I wanted someone to play with me.”
I’ve lost my appetite.
Ruth looks back at her daughter, and I already know she would never torture Esther this way. “My mother called me her Twinned Princess . . . She tested me to clone objects like her, but the only thing that happened was another clone emerged so she could deal with my mother while I played with my first clone.”
“That’s horrifying. Why haven’t you ever spoken about this?”
“It doesn’t help our cause to paint celestials in such a terrible light. We have people on our side making grave mistakes like this, but if we can’t show everyone that most of us are model citizens, especially after the Blackout, then we’re never going to be granted the equality generations and generations of celestialkind have been fighting for.”
I never thought that celestials could be as monstrous as the worst specters. That the Blood Casters aren’t the only villains.
“Do you talk to your parents?”
Ruth shakes her head. “Not really. The older I got, the less I appreciated their attitude toward other celestials. They’re wealthy and self-important and enrolled me in an elite private school for celestials to strengthen my powers so investors would care about my future. I always fought with them to make a difference with their money, but they only invested in our bloodline, so I took all the money I gained from social media partnerships, donated my fancy clothes, and gave up everything that felt like royalty. Then I started working at a hostel for celestials and I got good—okay, I’m being humble, I got amazing—at tailoring clothes for celestials in need.”
The music stops playing. Prudencia gently rocks the bassinet with her telekinesis, and she looks so beautiful using her power for such a simple reason.
“Do your parents know about Esther?” I ask.
“They do. They were impressed that Wesley is a Spell Walker, but they said his power would ruin our bloodline as if I care about that. Esther could have no powers and I’m happy if she doesn’t. Though Wesley wants her to have a combination of our powers so she and her clones can dash around my parents’ homes and rob them clean.” She rolls her eyes and smiles.
Her story is so epic it would’ve done really well on Celestials of New York, but really it needs to be an eight-part docuseries.
“You don’t want to make things right with them?” I ask, thinking about how I’m not going to get that chance with Ma.
“They gave birth to me, and they’ll technically always be family, but they’re not mine. I have Wesley and Esther. The other Spell Walkers. My friends at the havens. Emil isn’t your blood, but you know he’s your brother.”
“Of course.” He always will be.
“Family isn’t about blood.” Ruth nods very obviously at Prudencia. “Don’t let the good ones get away.”
Nineteen
The Cloaked Phantom
NESS
The Senator has spent the afternoon watching final cuts of my propaganda videos.
We’re up in the attic with Roslyn, and she’s explained her updated rollout plan. The majority of videos will be fed out online through sock puppet accounts. The ones capable of doing the most damage to celestial reputations—also known as the Senator’s favorites—will be offered to pro-Iron networks such as Wolf News for more prominent airing.
Roslyn pulls out a script from her folder. “I wrote this one last night. I created a victim who claims that Iris Simone-Chambers broke her arm and threatened to punch a hole in her stomach if she didn’t turn over surveillance footage that would’ve identified her as guilty of a robbery.”
The Senator slides the script back across the desk. “We can’t involve detailed personal accounts like that. Not for the Spell Walkers or Sunstar or any of my opponents. If they sense something is off, it could open an investigation that would stanch the wound we’re trying to widen. Only videos that can’t be traced back to us.” He turns to me, where I’m sitting in the corner by the window. “We can’t have Eduardo’s wonderful work go to waste. Isn’t that right, son?”
I don’t react. That’s what he wants and I’ve given him enough.
Filming for the past two days has been absolutely draining. The closest I’ve come to actively using my power for long stretches of time like this is when I once went undercover as one of Luna’s rival alchemists to get him some intel for blackmail. For how physically exhausting this has all been, it’s got nothing on how it’s affected me mentally. I’m the person behind all these masks of lies. Once these videos are out there, everyone who suffers—rights taken away, jailed, killed—will be because of my performances. The whole thing makes me want to morph into a little boy and cry into my mother’s chest.
The Senator stands. “Great work, Roslyn. I have to finish getting ready, but we can discuss your phase two proposals on the way to Florida. Be downstairs in three.” On the way out, he looks over his shoulder and says, “Behave while I’m away, Eduardo. Don’t stay up too late.” His laughter follows him out of the attic.
Roslyn lets out a happy sigh.
“How do you sleep at night, fraud?” I ask.
“A lot better since I started sharing a bed with your father,” she says with a smile.
So they are together now—or at least, hooking up. It seems like there are only a handful of people on the Senator’s team who know about me being alive. I haven’t seen any other bodyguards except Jax and Zenon, and Jax truly should’ve been fired for the way he failed at his job during the break-in this week. But if it’s really just those two, Bishop, and Roslyn, I have to manipulate them. Get into their heads.
“You’re never going to be his First Lady,” I tell her. “I know what it looks like when he talks to a woman he loves. That’s not what’s happening here.”
“My love for him and his work is enough for the both of us,” Roslyn says as she finishes packing up her laptop and files. “That’ll keep me warm in the White House’s master bedroom.”
She leaves the attic.
I want to call her a monster, but that won’t faze her. Roslyn needs time to become unsettled and I have to trust that I’ve planted a seed. I didn’t even have to lie. My mom wasn’t perfect. Her views weren’t always in line with where mine are now, and she didn’t always challenge her husband like she encouraged me with others, but she would’ve never supported all this cheating, let alone help engineer it. She didn’t have to perform her loyalty to the Senator to get him to love her. I saw his private grief when she was killed.
I hope every corrupt person on this team ends up in prison like the criminals they are. Right on cue, Jax arrives—his face fully healed because of Eva—to lock me back in my cage after this torturous session in the attic. I would’ve been happier alone and peeling paint off my walls than having the Senator and Roslyn for company. But Jax doesn’t take me to my bedroom. We go downstairs, where the Senator, Roslyn, and Zenon are waiting by the front door with luggage.
“We said bye already,” I say to the Senator.
“But not to Jax and Zenon. They’ll be joining me on this trip. Fear not, you won’t be left alone,” he says.
Dione steps out of th
e living room and leans against the grandfather clock. “Enough talk. You can go now,” she says to the Senator.
He doesn’t challenge her disrespect. He must understand already that she won’t ever favor him. It’s one of the reasons I trusted her after joining the gang.
I see the Senator and Roslyn in this new light knowing they’re together and I’m thrilled when they leave with Jax and Zenon following them out. That leaves me with Dione. We’re not friends, though I thought we could’ve been. She was always the most human in rooms with bloodthirsty Stanton and ghostly June. But she’s quick to anger, doesn’t show remorse around killing those who try to overpower her, and she’s very loyal to Luna. I have to be smart around her if I’m going to make the most of this time away from the Senator and his team.
“Should we throw a party?” I ask.
“Anything that helps trash this place,” Dione says, eyeing the grandfather clock as if she’s considering tipping it over. “But I have to catch up with Luna.”
“Where is she?”
Dione chuckles. “The Cloaked Phantom is hitting the sky tonight. Where do you think?”
“That’s tonight?!”
The twice-a-year constellation that made me a shifter. How has it already been eight months since I’ve had these powers? I would’ve never thought I’d be back here in the manor, forced to be a weapon once again for the person I happily played dead to never see again.
“For someone who’s credited as being very alert, this important detail flew right over your head.”
“I wasn’t exactly given a calendar with every upcoming prime constellation when forced back here. Take that up with the host you’re working for.”
Dione’s eyes are daggers. “I don’t work for your father. If Luna is successful, you won’t have to work for him either.”
This must be what Luna and the Senator discussed the evening she arrived—my replacement. Maybe she has someone in mind who will be more eager to help them fulfill their vision. “So who’s the young bastard Luna is preying on this time?”